Polio threatens Europe as virus makes comeback amid wars and flood of refugees | National Post
Polio’s re-appearance in Syria last month after a 14 year absence raises the risk that the virus will hitch a ride on unsuspecting refugees fleeing the country and return to areas, including Europe, that have been polio-free for decades, according to a letter published in the The Lancet medical journal Friday.
“Polio is making a comeback,” Martin Eichner, a professor at the University of Tuebingen who co-authored the letter to The Lancet, said Friday. Eichner and a German colleague warned that the vaccine used in the U.S. and Europe offers only partial protection against infection and called for heightened screening of sewage systems near refugee settlements in Turkey and Jordan. Syrian war refugees, moreover, have begun arriving in Western Europe, including Sweden and Germany.
Another 180 polio cases have been reported in Somalia this year, and smaller numbers in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The virus was also found in sewage and feces samples in Israel, which represents a threat for Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in September. No actual polio cases have been reported in Israel.
Two vaccines are used to protect children: an oral inoculation that contains the live virus, and a so-called inactivated shot that delivers a disarmed version of the pathogen.
Most Western European countries and the U.S. switched to the disarmed injection more than a decade ago because the oral vaccine was linked to some polio infections. While it prevents paralysis, the shot doesn’t fully protect against infection of the virus. That may enable it to circulate undetected in the region, Eichner and his colleague Stefan Brockmann of the Regional Public Health Office in Reutlingen, Germany wrote in The Lancet.
Polio’s re-appearance in Syria last month after a 14 year absence raises the risk that the virus will hitch a ride on unsuspecting refugees fleeing the country and return to areas, including Europe, that have been polio-free for decades, according to a letter published in the The Lancet medical journal Friday.
“Polio is making a comeback,” Martin Eichner, a professor at the University of Tuebingen who co-authored the letter to The Lancet, said Friday. Eichner and a German colleague warned that the vaccine used in the U.S. and Europe offers only partial protection against infection and called for heightened screening of sewage systems near refugee settlements in Turkey and Jordan. Syrian war refugees, moreover, have begun arriving in Western Europe, including Sweden and Germany.
Another 180 polio cases have been reported in Somalia this year, and smaller numbers in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan.
The virus was also found in sewage and feces samples in Israel, which represents a threat for Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in September. No actual polio cases have been reported in Israel.
Two vaccines are used to protect children: an oral inoculation that contains the live virus, and a so-called inactivated shot that delivers a disarmed version of the pathogen.
Most Western European countries and the U.S. switched to the disarmed injection more than a decade ago because the oral vaccine was linked to some polio infections. While it prevents paralysis, the shot doesn’t fully protect against infection of the virus. That may enable it to circulate undetected in the region, Eichner and his colleague Stefan Brockmann of the Regional Public Health Office in Reutlingen, Germany wrote in The Lancet.
